disk becoming obsolete

Between my smartphone, tablet, and laptop, it’s a problem if I have a file on local disk instead of in the cloud. The file is only accessible on FOO computer? Ridiculous.

When I was helping my brother set up a link between his digital camera and his laptop last weekend, he specifically didn’t want the photos to go to the laptop because then he would lose them as soon as he changed machine.

I’ve been backing up to Backblaze instead of a disk lately. Partly it’s that I’ve had several backup disks go bad and take down my history. Partly it’s that the files are then accessible via the cloud.

Not long ago this was spacey and futuristic. Soon it won’t be worth remarking on.

Cloud storage makes your content available everywhere on every device.

This is much better than pure backup which requires a manual retrieval step to gain access to your files.

I love Google Docs because it makes my documents available everywhere. I can view/edit my documents from anywhere. With MP3tunes (my co) I can listen to my music from anywhere. With picasa I can view my photos from everywhere. And youtube handles my videos.

Backblaze is cloud-based backup of local storage. I agree that the retrieval step is a problem more than a benefit. Though in the short term, while much of my work is still in local files, the ability to retrieve is still somewhat a benefit rather than a burden.

But this depends on the apps obviously. Music can easily migrate to the cloud, and it’s pure annoyance that I have to recopy my files from laptop to laptop and onto each of my mobile devices. This is more a factor of how things work in the Apple ecosystem than preference. I also use disk for ripping Netflix disks to watch at my own convenience, but that’s only temporary while there’s a big gap between Netflix’ online and DVD catalogs. I love Google docs because I can view/edit anywhere, and my docs last. I have also been getting in the habit of mailing things that I want to keep to my gmail account. YouTube stores my videos but doesn’t edit them, and obviously only stores in a compressed/edited form.

Anyhow it seems clear to me that all the situations in which I still rely on local storage devices are in the process of becoming obsolete.

In some ways, I am doing the opposite: having one file collection live on one local machine, and another live on another, etc. In this way, I can more easily focus on particular collections,b say work vs music vs photos vs other fun things, etc.

And, also important, I can move away from a local machine and get free of all those files.